“The Fourth District is currently working a shooting in the 5100 block of Georgia Ave N.W., where an adult male was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the upper torso. The Violent Crimes Branch is handling the investigation. We are asking any citizens that may have information relative to this event to contact detectives on 202-645-9600 or 202-727-9099.”

For all the promising development and investments immediately easy and west of the area, Georgia from Hamilton to Madison remains a crime-ridden dump. 14tj and Harvard isn’t even worth commenting on anymore.

And no one cares… That is what gets me. If you contact either MPD or Brandon Todd all you will get are a set of talking points about how crime is actually down that fly in the face of reality. And the fact that the Mayor is from our Ward… You would think she would give a damn, but instead she’d rather spend time talking statehood.

Here’s the thing: Crime IS down in the Fourth District. Run the numbers on the MPD Crime Map for yourself and you’ll see that it’s down in all major categories (violent and property). But the number of gunshots isn’t tracked and released publicly by MPD.

Sorry, not buying it. After all of the personal experiences and anecdotes about how MPD dissuades crime victims from filing reports, or outright refuses to take a report, or how people are so disillusioned that they just don’t bother even trying to file a report (particularly with respect to property crimes), I put zero credence in the crime statistics and MPD or the politicians tout.

I will concede there are fewer homicides than last year. It’s tough to cook the books on them. But as to everything else, including assaults, I am skeptical, to say the least. That doesn’t mean that I think crime is up; it means that the statistics are effectively worthless.

Also, acknowledging but for the moment ignoring dcd’s valid and important point above, the fourth district is huge. People who live between, say, Fifth and Georgia, Decatur and Kennedy, have little reason to care about aggregated 4D stats.